


if i loved you less.

by scoundrelhan



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Episode: s15e18 Despair, Fix-It of Sorts, M/M, Temporary Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-09
Updated: 2020-11-14
Packaged: 2021-03-08 17:14:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 9,796
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27480286
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scoundrelhan/pseuds/scoundrelhan
Summary: "If I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it more." - Emma, Jane Austen
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Comments: 1
Kudos: 120





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Full disclaimer: I have literally no inkling of the plot past s10 because I decided to step away from the fandom for a while, but after the events of last week, I am officially back on my bullshit. Unfortunately for you all, that means I'm writing fic with no idea what's actually going on in canon. Enjoy <3

The floor is cold and solid underneath him as Dean sits propped against the wall. His phone hasn’t stopped buzzing at his side for five minutes, a steady, rhythmic vibration. Dean picks it up again to stare at Sam’s name lighting up the screen. The light burns his eyes, and he swipes at the wetness on his cheeks. He watches as the call gets sent to voicemail, and Sam immediately calls him once more. Without hesitating, Dean chucks the phone straight at the opposite wall. He hears it ricochet off the tile and spiral across the floor. 

Silence again. So much silence.

Dean refuses to look at where it landed. He knows it stopped in the middle of the room, only a few feet from where it happened.

A new chill seeps through the denim of his jeans, roots itself in his core. He inhales a shaky breath and feels the chill wrap around his lungs and squeeze. Dean knows objectively that he is about to have a panic attack because his hands are now shaking, and his vision is blurry not just from the unshed tears, and he can’t breathe. He can’t breathe. He sucks in another gulp of air and tries to focus on something. _Okay, okay, get it fucking together._ There’s a chip in the concrete right by the sole of his right boot, and Dean presses his thumb into it until the jagged stone starts to cut into his skin. The pain is familiar, but it doesn’t stop the pounding of his heart. Before he can do anything else, his mind conjures up his own words above the rushing of blood in his ears.

The tears come easier and harder this time. He doesn’t care that he starts to sob for a second time, his entire body shaking from the force of it. The last words Dean had spoken had been the only thing he could say, which was, “Don’t do this, Cas,” which was, to say, _don’t leave me._ He presses his fists so hard against his closed eyes, colors burst and spark to life in the darkness. _Stop, please stop_ , Dean begs himself.

Time passes slowly, but it doesn’t take much longer before he hears hurried footsteps echoing down the hallway and Sam’s voice, shaking with fear, bellowing his name. Dean doesn’t move from his spot on the floor, but he looks up in time to watch Sam stumble into the room, wild-eyed and gun in hand.

“Dean? Dean! What the hell, man? I’ve called you twenty times!” Sam half-shouts, but he drops his gun to his side, visibly relieved. “I thought you were dead.”

Dean opens his mouth to say something, but his voice fails him. Sam begins to walk towards him, but the crunch of glass stops him in his tracks. He stoops down to pick up the remnants of Dean’s phone.

“No wonder you weren’t picking up,” Sam quips. He makes eye contact with Dean, and he knows the exact moment the cogs in Sam’s head start to go into turbo mode.

Dean knows he looks like a mess. His cheeks are tight from the dried tears, and snot is dripping from his nostrils. He can feel the dried blood on his temple. Sam takes another look around the room and holsters his gun. He doesn’t come any closer.

“Where’s Cas?” Sam asks, quieter now.

Dean closes his eyes again and lets his head fall back against the wall. The fluorescent lights pierce straight through his eyelids, stoking the flames of a soon-to-be migraine. He doesn’t even know what to say. 

_Cas is fucking gone. Cas is dead. Cas made another stupid fucking deal. Cas—_

“Dean… Dean, hey, are you okay?”

He can feel the heat of his brother against his side, and then the searing weight of a hand at his pulse point for a brief moment. Dean hears Sam take a sharp breath, and when he opens his eyes, his brother is staring at Dean’s left shoulder, lips pressed together in a tight line. He doesn’t want to look, but Dean does anyway. It doesn’t process at first, except for the fact that there’s blood, and he knows it isn’t his. When he pulls the fabric taught, the red takes shape, and he thinks for a moment that he is going to throw up, like maybe he was concussed from slamming into the wall.

“Let’s, uh,” Sam starts to say, but Dean is hardly listening, can’t take his eyes off of the near-perfect rusty handprint, like it’s some sort of hallucination, like if he blinks all of this will disappear. 

“Hey, let’s get out of here, yeah?”

Dean blinks. The handprint stays. Sam is still looking at him with those goddamn pitying eyes. He has nowhere to put this feeling in his chest. He’s too tired to be angry. Dean wants to be. That would be known territory. He wants to kick, and scream, and spit, but he doesn’t. Not really. Sam offers him a hand, and Dean takes it, letting himself be pulled to his feet.

Sam doesn’t say another word.


	2. Chapter 2

Dean swirls his third glass of whiskey, watches as it catches the light of the table lamp and paints his lap in amber. He doesn’t know what time it is. Sam looks exhausted, but he doesn’t go to bed, just keeps hovering around, exuding this nervous energy that is driving Dean nuts but he’s too defeated to bitch at him. Neither of them have said much of anything for the past twenty minutes, except to confirm that the entire world is wiped out aside from them and God. How fitting, that. The two of them (and Jack, too) against the world, but there’s no world left is there? Nothing to save, nothing to kill, nothing to fight. Nothing to love.

Dean knocks back the rest of his drink. It burns warm in his throat. Dean doesn’t mean it when he sends it falling to the floor to shatter in a million, glittering pieces. His hand is shaking so bad, and he tries to stand to clean it up, but Sam tells him _hey, it’s okay, I got it, don’t move_ . He sits, useless, and watches Sam pick up the bigger pieces in his busted up hands and thinks, _What am I supposed to do now?_

“Sammy, I’m sorry,” Dean tries to say as Sam gets up to throw out the shards, but the words get stuck in his throat.

He picks up the entire bottle this time, and takes a long swig. He doesn’t want it. It curdles in his stomach the second he swallows. He thinks he’s gonna puke, but not from the alcohol.

“Dean, listen,” Sam starts after he comes back. “I know something happened. I know you don’t want to talk about it. Hell, I don’t… I get it. But I gotta know what we’re up against here. Was it Billie?”

Dean can see the film of tears in Sam’s eyes, the way he’s swallowing around the same lump in his throat that’s in Dean’s. Eileen is gone, too, now. Sam doesn’t have to say it. He knows Sam loved her, the real kind of love. The kind of love you wait your whole life for. 

“It’s so fucking unfair,” Dean says, shakes his head, and hates the way his voice breaks. 

Sam hums, keeps looking at him with those endlessly sad eyes. He reaches out a hand, and Dean hands over the bottle. Sam studies it for a moment, and then knocks back a shot of his own. He winces, and sets it on the table with a muted thud.

“I thought for a moment, you know, when you didn’t pick up that you were gone, too,” Sam says, eyes not quite meeting Dean’s, and somehow there’s still enough of Dean’s heart left to break.

Dean sighs, and scrubs a hand across his face. There’s nothing to say. Nothing he can say will make anything right. 

“I just... Sam, I couldn’t...”

Sam shakes his head, and holds up a hand.

“I’m just glad you’re okay.”

They lapse into another silence. Dean wants to reach for the bottle again, but it’s just out of habit. He’s warm from what he’s already had, but nothing’s changed. If anything, he feels less in control, like the whiskey is washing away whatever glue was keeping himself together. 

“Did Cas say anything before it happened—whatever it was that happened?”

Dean shakes his head, jaw locked up tight, teeth clenched. He slides his elbows up on the table and holds his head in his hands. Dean thinks if he doesn’t hold himself up, he’s going to shatter just like that glass. Thousands of tiny little pieces Dean all over the floor, no chance of being put back together again. 

“Doesn’t matter. He’s gone,” Dean whispers to the encyclopedia in front of him.

“Dean, I know. He’s—he was my friend, too, but the entire world got zapped, and Billie’s still on the loose, and now you’re telling me Cas is gone—“

“Billie’s dead,” Dean cuts in.

“Oh,” Sam says. “Well, that’s one less thing on the list.”

“Yeah,” Dean grunts back. 

He’s not doing this. It’s too soon. Saying that had almost been too much to bear—admitting that Cas is gone. Dead. Dead all over again, and this time it felt very fucking final. All those other times, Dean had grieved, grieved so hard and horrible he thought there could be no one else on this earth who had ever grieved like him. He hadn’t felt like this about anyone else, not even when Sam had been taken from him. Sam is different. Sam’s his blood. This feeling inside, it isn’t like anything else.

A single tear clings to Dean’s left eye, pooling along his lash line. He swipes at it before it can fall.

“I’m gonna hit the sack,” Dean says, and stands, swaying a little on his feet.

Sam looks at him like he wants to protest, ask more questions, but whatever he sees on Dean’s face keeps him quiet.

“Okay, yeah. Jack should be back pretty soon. We can regroup tomorrow.”

Jack. 

Dean isn’t ready to face him either.

He nods his agreement, and hesitates. Dean decides to take the bottle with him anyway, make him feel a bit more normal. There’s a process to this he knows too well, except it feels like a performance, a little one-man show so everyone will just leave him the hell alone. Oscar-worthy.

Dean’s room feels suffocating tonight. He drops the bottle on the nightstand, untouched, and sags into the mattress. He doesn’t bother with his jeans, or his boots, just curls in on himself on top of the sheets. There’s that silence again. It wraps around him, filling the room and his ears like water, makes him want to smack the side of his head to get it out. He stares at the wall, and thinks about the black void, how it bubbled and roiled like floating tar. How it had just congealed into existence. He wishes for a fleeting moment it would take him, too. Wants it to ooze out of the spot on the wall he’s burning a hole into with his mind and smother him, send him spiraling into whatever void Cas is in right now. 

He understands that there’s no use. It’s just himself alone, no one with their ears on to listen to his begging, but it doesn’t stop him. 

_Please. Just one last time._

That night, Dean dreams in memories.

—

_“Are you happy?” Dean asks one night when he and Cas are alone._

_Cas is sitting across from him wearing an old flannel of Dean’s, and there are bags under his eyes, and it strikes Dean in that moment how_ human _Cas looks. He’s not entirely sure why he’s asking this right now, but it’s too late to take it back. It does occur to him, though, that whatever Cas’s answer is, it’s important to him that he knows._

_“I suppose,” Cas responds, hardly looking up, too distracted by the piles of texts, encyclopedias, and whatever-ias Sam dug up from the dusty corners of the bunker’s storage rooms._

_“Well, supposing isn’t the same as ‘yes’.”_

_“Yes, Dean. I am happy.”_

—

_“You don’t have to say it. I heard your prayer.”_

That’s not what I meant _, he wants to scream, but there is sick relief to this game of theirs, the way he can’t quite ever seem to find the time, the place, but he is feeling split open, bleeding heart to open air. It’s all too much at once. The deja vu of it all. The way he’s seeing double—the Cas from now, and the Cas from then superimposed over him. The wild-eyed fear in his eyes as Dean approached him, covered head to toe in dirt, the way he remembers crushing Cas to his chest and thinking if he held him tight enough in that moment, he’d never run away again. Dean watches Cas’s back as he walks away into the trees._

Of course, I forgive you. 

I love—


	3. Chapter 3

Dean has dreams of a lot of things these days. He dreams of losing himself in the Mark, the things he’d done on earth rivaling his sins down below. Dean dreams of death, and blood on his tongue, blood in his eyes, on his hands, blood that’s not his. He dreams of shadows, and knives, and evil things. He dreams of Mom, and Sam. He dreams of them in his arms, how a body feels so much lighter without a soul inside of it. He dreams of everyone they’ve lost, and all the ones he couldn’t save. All the ones he killed with his own two hands. He dreams of Dad, too, sometimes, but less and less as the years pass by. It’s usually the methodical sound of him stripping his gun in a pitch black motel room, or the force of his meaty fist. It’s all there, waiting for him in the dark.

Dean wakes up shaking, coated in a full-body sheen of sweat. He forgets where he is for a moment, still smelling rotten earth, and the trees, and the flash of tan cloth, until Dean feels his sheets. 

The dreams tonight, though, had been unsettling in their softness. They’d been more like a warm hand on the cheek. Nothing solid. Just an intangible feeling. A small comfort. He can hardly remember the details, just that, of course, Cas had been in them. He had expected pain. This? Somehow, this is worse. 

Dean checks his phone for the time, and groans when he sees it’s hardly even past two in the morning.  _ No missed calls _ , he thinks, stupidly. As if there’s anyone left to call him. 

He doesn’t remember falling asleep, and regrets not putting himself to bed properly. He shuts off the lights, toes off his boots, and peels off the bloodied jacket, then his shirt. Instead of tossing it aside, Dean folds the jacket, fingers gentle and careful not to leave creases in wrong places. He doesn’t know why he does it, but he sets it on the empty side of the bed. He doesn’t lay back down. He traces a finger along the outline of a smudged thumbprint.

Hell never left Dean. He doesn’t think it ever will. Over a decade later, and Dean still dreams of it, can taste and smell it like he was still rotting and screaming in the Pit. He remembers everything. Every soul. He does not remember Cas. He wishes that he did. It’s just Hell, then nothingness. The pine box, and feeling like his throat had been replaced with the Sahara. He does remember feeling like he’d been sunburned, skin flesh pink and raw as it rubbed against his clothes, and not knowing why. He remembers fighting through the dirt, swallowing so much he thought he’d die all over again choking on the earth, and finally bursting out into the open air. He remembers the scorched grass, the fallen trees in a perfect ring around his grave, and it’s funny, really, in the fucked up sort of way knowing now what—who—had done that. Who had leveled forests, and who had fought through the gates of Hell to raise a soul out of the Pit.

It still takes the wind out of him to this day. An angel rescuing a soul from Hell on God’s orders.  _ So much for God _ , Dean sneers to himself. It’s easy to forget that Cas isn’t human. Still isn’t. He’d smote entire rooms of demons, appeared in the front seat with the sound of a thousand flapping wings, fought off archangels, and Dean still hadn’t ever thought of him as anything other than, well, just Cas. 

They have to get him back. One last resurrection. One last magic trick for the books.  _ Step right up, kids. _ They have to do it. Dean has to. Sleep is out of the question now, despite the pounding behind his eyes from the liquor. He doesn’t want to hope too hard, but he knows if one thing is constant in his life, it’s that endings aren’t for people like them.

Dean can’t sleep, and he’s done moping around dreaming about the past and mourning the present. So Dean does what he does best. 

He gets to work.

—

Dean startles awake again, but this time he’s using an ancient book of sigils as a pillow. Sam’s towering over him like some menacing statue, coffee mug in one hand, and phone in the other. He looks like he got as much sleep as Dean got. His eyes are rimmed in red, and the skin beneath them is bruised.

“Dude, were you here all night?”

Dean grumbles at him in reply, and sits up. 

There’s a massive crick in his neck, and his spine pops in three different places. Jesus, he’s getting too old for this. Sam offers the coffee to Dean like some sort of olive branch. He takes it gladly. 

“So, what’s all this about?” Sam asks, gesturing towards the scattered texts. 

“I’m going to summon the Empty,” Dean says over the rim of the mug, steam warming up his cheeks, like he just gave Sam the time, “and Jack’s going to help me do it.”

“You’re going to do  _ what _ ?” Sam blurts out, eyes nearly bugging out of his head. “Dean, that’s a bad fucking idea. We already have Chuck to deal with. We don’t need to be summoning more shit we don’t understand, or can’t control.”

Dean sets the mug down, hard. Droplets of hot coffee splash over the side, and land on his hand. It burns, but Dean doesn’t care. 

“Sam,” Dean starts, and bowls right through whatever else Sam starts to say in protest. “ _ Sam _ , I’m doing this with or without you. I need Jack to be on board because he’s apparently what the Empty wanted in the first place. Cas made a deal to save him. If it thinks it can get Jack, too, it’ll come for him, and boom, I’ll jump in his place.”

“Okay, great, so that’s how you’re getting in. How the hell are you getting back out?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Dean says, and fixes Sam with a stare that he hopes conveys how serious he is.

“It matters to me,” Sam says, louder now, cheeks flushing with a familiar anger Dean knows too well. “It matters to  _ me _ if you don’t make it back.”

Dean feels his own fury bubbling up in his throat. Sam doesn’t fucking understand. This isn’t him asking permission, or for some words of warning. He doesn’t care. He doesn’t give a single shit about what happens, just that he needs to do this. He needs to at least try. Dean owes Cas that much, and more. So much fucking more. He needs to say that he tried, and if he fails… Well, since when does Dean Winchester think that far ahead.

“I’ll do it,” a soft voice says somewhere to Dean’s right. 

He turns to see Jack standing there, arms limp at his side, face solemn. There’s an odd sort of calmness about him like he knew this was coming. The tide of anger that had been rising inside of Dean’s chest subsides as he looks at the kid. Even though Dean knows better, Jack looks every bit the innocent teenager, ready to die for Dean’s crusade because he doesn’t know any better. Great role models, they’ve been. As if the child of the Devil himself needs any more bad influences in his life.

“Jack, you don’t have to do this,” Sam says, but Jack just shakes his head with the tiniest bit of a smile.

“If it brings Castiel back, I will help you.”

So Sam told him. Dean would thank him, but he’s too busy being stubborn. If Sam so much as even tries to get in the way of this for him, he’ll beat his stupid ass into next Tuesday. Dean knows there are bigger fish to fry, that the entire world is one massive ghost town, and God is on the loose, and there is still no one to take Death’s place. He knows, but he also knows that he can’t finish this fight or anything else unless he has everyone with him, and that means Cas. Especially Cas.

“Alright, kid,” Dean sighs, scratches at the back of his neck. 

Adrenaline is already buzzing in his veins at the thought that they’re actually doing it. They’re going to get him back. This is going to work because it has to. Because if Dean never gets to see him again, never gets to touch him… If he never gets to say it… There are no words for what he’ll do.

“Breakfast first, though.”


	4. Chapter 4

It turns out the Empty really lives up to its name. Dean hesitates to say it is worse than Hell, but it’s not much better. It all happens so fast. One second he’s slapping a bloodied hand onto the same sigil he’d seen Cas draw on the panic room door with Jack standing beside him, and Sam off to the side, watching reluctantly. The next second, Dean’s dry heaving into nothingness. He wipes the bile from his lips, and sucks in a deep breath to steady himself. 

_Okay, lesson learned. Don’t look down._

Dean doesn’t know where to begin when there’s nothing to see for what he thinks must be eternity. All he can think with a small bit of satisfaction is _suck it, Sam_. His plan is working so far. Whatever protection they’d placed around Jack had actually kept him from getting sucked in with Dean. 

This place is a void, like the vacuum of space except Dean is still breathing and the blackness feels like it’s alive and reaching for him, sticking to him, except when he goes to wipe it away, there’s nothing there. No goo. No black tar. He tries not to think about how Cas had chosen to send himself here not just for Jack, but for Dean.

Dean doesn’t know what else to do, except start walking. He hesitates to yell for Cas. He’s worried about what else might be lurking around here. He thinks about how he’d been up late with the TV on, and there’s been some space documentary talking about dark matter. He can picture the way they’d animated it, how one moment there had been a star, the next second nothing but the emptiness of space. That’s what the Empty reminds him of. Something there, but not quite there. Something just out of sight.

“Cas,” he says, confident but not loud, testing the waters.

Nothing comes popping out of the dark to kill him.

“Cas!” Dean yells as loud as he can. 

It freaks him out a little that there’s no echo. He feels like he’s in one of those sound-proofed rooms, or like when the first snowfall happens and there’s a different brand of silence at sunrise. Dean keeps moving forward. It’s indescribable, the way the Empty moves to accommodate him in its space. It’s not quite like liquid. It’s like curtains that flow past him, but there’s no way to tell where they end or begin.

“Cas? It’s me!” Dean calls out again.

Dean takes another step, and his foot collides with something solid.

“Fuck,” he hisses, reaching for his knife out of instinct, but when he looks down and sees what’s lying before him, Dean collapses to his knees.

“Cas,” Dean chokes out.

Cas is lying down, eyes closed, mouth parted. He’s breathing as far as Dean can tell, but he doesn’t so much as twitch when Dean tries to shake him awake.

“Cas, hey, it’s me. It’s me, and I’m here, now. I’m here. We’re going home. You’re coming home with me. I found you,” Dean babbles, nearly hysterical.

He wants to laugh. He wants to cry.

Dean wants to go home. 

“What’d you say we bust out of this joint? Not really my vibe,” Dean jokes, stroking at the collar of Cas’s shirt where he’d checked his pulse.

He prays. Dean prays so damn hard, he thinks he’s gonna burst a blood vessel and then some. He prays to Jack to hear him, to open the portal back up. He hopes to fuck this works. It’s the only shot he’s got. The only shot _they’ve_ got. He prays and prays and prays. _Please, hear me. I hope those stupid ears of yours can hear me. Bring us home, Jack. I’ve got him. We need to get out. Now._

There’s a shift. Dean can feel it. He wraps an arm around Cas’s chest, and shoves another up under his back so he can bring him into his lap. Cas’s head falls slack against Dean’s shoulder. He holds him tight, and braces himself. The Empty doesn’t give up without a fight. It rages around them, and Dean thinks for a terrible second that he can see Alistair smiling at him in the distance. He blinks, and it’s a child he once had on the Rack. Another blink, and now it’s Ruby giving him a wave, then Michael, and so on. Another Cas, blood pouring down his face, covered head to toe in red. Every nightmare, everything he’s ever feared. 

Just as Dean thinks he’s going to go insane, searing light bursts into his view, and he throws up his arm to shield himself, crying out against the assault on his senses. A hand comes down on his shoulder to steady him, and he reels back, tries to run away but Cas’s limp body anchors him to the ground.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa! It’s just me, Dean! It’s me,” Sam’s voice is saying.

It’s hard to focus on anything. He squints at the fluorescent lights, and tries to rub away all the spots clouding his vision.

Dean looks down at Cas, and it settles in what just happened.

They made it. They made it home together.

“Is he okay? What’s wrong? Why isn’t he awake?”

Jack’s questions tear Dean out of his thoughts. 

“I don’t know. This is how I found him. He was breathing before,” Dean says, shifting Cas gently off of him so that he’s laying fully on his back on the bunker floor.

Dean lifts a shaking hand to hover just over Cas’s mouth, close enough that he can feel his skin is freezing to the touch. He almost dry heaves again, but then, a puff of warmth. A couple seconds later, and there’s another.

“He’s breathing. He’s alive,” Dean says, and it almost comes out as a sob.

There’s always a catch. Dean knows this. No deal is ever equal. Been there, done that. He doesn’t know what this means that Cas didn’t wake up once they got out. He didn’t stop breathing, so that’s the silver lining Dean is going to cling to for a while.

Once Jack is satisfied that Cas is, in fact, not dead, they all manage to move Cas off the floor, and into Dean’s room. There’s no question as to why, and Dean isn’t sure either, but it feels right for now. Cas doesn’t wake up during any of it, even when Jack accidentally bangs his unsupported head against the doorframe. The three of them stand around the bed for a minute and just stare at where Cas is lying crooked on the bed. Dean makes the first move, which is to gently wrap Cas up in a spare blanket he keeps under the bed. Dean lingers after he makes sure nothing except Cas’s head is exposed. He looks ridiculous in this makeshift cocoon. He lifts his hand to smooth down a stray hair that had fallen across Cas’s brow.

“Well, uh,” Sam says, clearing his throat. “While you were gone, Jack and I talked about heading into town, and grabbing some stuff. See if everyone really is gone.”

“Alright,” Dean replies, and Sam doesn’t even ask if he’s coming.

Sam’s footfalls fade down the hallway, but Dean doesn’t need to look to know Jack is still there. 

“Thank you,” Dean says, quietly.

“You’ve never thanked me before.”

“Yeah, well,” Dean replies, swallowing down the lump that threatens to return to its home in his throat. “I just did. I mean it, kid.”

He hears Jack shift on his feet, and finally, he listens to him retrace Sam’s steps.

It hits him like a ton of bricks, the exhaustion. He aches deep in his bones, and his headache from last night is quickly approaching a migraine. Dean unties his boots, kicks them off into the corner, and stands there for another minute feeling stupid. There’s color in Cas’s cheeks that hadn’t been there when they’d first got spit back into reality. Cas hasn’t actually moved, but it’s like watching winter thaw into spring. He’s breathing. He’s alive. That’s more than Dean could have ever asked for.

Dean carefully moves the jacket off the bed and onto his desk, and replaces it with himself. Sleep begins to wash over Dean, a request for a calm surrender to a different kind of darkness. He keeps his distance on the mattress, but makes sure he’s facing Cas so if anything happens, he’ll know. He’ll be there whenever Sleeping Beauty decides he’s had enough beauty sleep. He’ll be there no matter what.


	5. Chapter 5

Dean’s not really dreaming, but he’s not entirely awake, either, just existing in some peaceful limbo. It’s the rest he used to get on hunts when he and Sam had been hiding in some graveyard, waiting for the shitshow to begin so they could go back to their motel and Dean could actually pass out. He’s been in and out of this limbo for what feels like hours, his internal clock waking him every so often so he can make sure Cas is there, not just a figment of Dean’s imagination or some cosmic trick. Cas has been eerily still every time, but he keeps breathing, skin no longer corpse-cold beneath Dean’s fingers.

Something smacks Dean in the chest so hard, it nearly knocks the wind out of him, and Dean surges back into full consciousness, reaching under his pillow for his gun and half-falling out of the bed. 

When Sam was little, he’d had night terrors so bad, Dean would have to wrap him up in every blanket he could find and lay with him until it passed. Sam would cry, and scream, and Dean would try his best to be the big brother and shush him back to sleep. The last thing they’d needed was someone knocking on the door to find two kids with a room full of weapons and devil symbols all over the walls. Dad had hardly been there to know it happened. That had been Dean’s job.

Dean scrambles backward until his back hits the wall, gun aimed and finger grazing the trigger. The room is empty, but he knows better. He pushes himself up into a crouch, and scans the space. Still nothing. His eyes land back on Cas. Still sleeping, except his right arm is sprawled out in the space Dean just was.

“Cas?” Dean asks, trying to stamp out the hope exploding in his chest.

Cas stirs ever so slightly, fingers twitching against the sheets, but his eyes stay closed, and Dean swears under his breath. Dean thinks he’s imaging it, but he can hear something. Dean sets his gun down next to the bed, and walks to the other side of the bed so he can kneel next to Cas. This close, he can see the flutter of Cas’s eyelashes against his cheek. Cas’s lips are hardly moving, but Dean hears it more clearly now. He’s whispering in another language, something that sounds old, too old to be human; at least, it’s something Dean’s never heard before. There’s power behind every syllable. It makes the hairs on Dean’s arms stand on edge.

“You gotta make everything so damn difficult, don’t you?” Dean mutters.

Dean places his left hand over the blankets and breathes long and deep. He’s saved Cas’s body, but it’s obvious his mind is trapped elsewhere--either of his own doing, or the Empty’s. If he can manage to get in Cas’s head and break whatever mental bonds are keeping him like this, Dean’s going to do it. He’s going to do whatever it takes. If Cas had put himself into this coma, Dean doesn’t blame him. He doesn't want to think about what the Empty’s true potential for mental or physical torture could be. He hadn’t been there long enough for it to take an interest in him. No human had probably ever been there. Dean had been hardly a blip on its radar. It hadn’t paid him any real attention until it had started to catch on to the fact Dean had wanted to take what it thought it had been owed.

_ Fuck you _ ,  _ and your deal,  _ Dean thinks, fingers curling into a fist over Cas’s heart. 

_ You don’t get to keep him _ .

He doesn’t want to leave Cas alone for longer than necessary, but he knows there’s a spell that can get him where he needs to be. Dean shuts the door behind him when he leaves, and heads for the library again. He hears distant conversation coming from the direction of the kitchen. Sam and Jack must have returned from their supply run, but he doesn’t call out to them, just rushes over to the stacks of tomes and scrolls they hadn’t bothered to put away. Dean knows he’s seen it somewhere. He flips through book after book, scanning every page for something about entering another’s dreams or sleep spells.

“Dean?”

Dean’s so lost in his thoughts, he almost jumps out of his skin.

“Jesus, Sam,” Dean huffs and punches Sam in the arm to punctuate the statement. “You scared the shit out of me.”

Sam yelps, and looks at him like he’s gone insane. Maybe Dean has.

“The hell is wrong with you?” Sam complains, rubbing at his arm, giving Dean a scowl that would be funny if circumstances were different. “Is Cas awake?”

Dean shakes his head, and Sam looks down at the book Dean had been tearing through.

“Why do I have a feeling you were about to do something incredibly fucking stupid without asking for help?”

“Screw you,” Dean says, but knows there’s no use in lying. Sam’s got his number, so he sighs, defeated, and explains, “I heard Cas saying something in his sleep. Sounds like some kind of spell, but it’s nothing I recognize. Didn’t sound like Latin, or Enochian. I don’t know if it’s that black goo keeping him under, or if it’s something Cas did to himself as protection, or whatever.”

“You’re trying to get inside his head,” Sam says, but it’s not a question. “Break him out from the inside.”

Dean sees the second Sam turns into nerd mode. He pushes Dean out of the way and grabs another book Dean hadn’t gotten to yet, its binding falling apart from age. He starts flipping through the pages until he lands on one with a Latin inscription. Sam taps the words and turns the old book to face Dean. Dean understands enough to get the gist.

“Would’ve been a lot faster if you’d just asked,” Sam mutters under his breath, and Dean rolls his eyes, almost punches him again like they’re kids and the world isn’t ending for the hundredth time.

“Smartass,” Dean retorts, but there’s no malice behind it. “So, what do we gotta do?”

“I’ll go get the candles,” Sam says and heads off towards the storage room.

They’re back in Dean’s room five minutes after Sam’s done with his search. He watches as Sam lights a couple of votive candles and spaces them equally around his bed. Dean wants to make some stupid joke about  _ how romantic _ , but it dies in his throat. It’s a fairly simple spell, Sam had explained to him. It takes two people to do it--one to enter the dream plane, another to act as an anchor to the real world. The spell calls for a string to act as a symbolic tether, and Sam ties one around his and Dean’s wrists.

“You only have so much time. It’s like astral projecting. There’s only so long your mind can be from your body before shit hits the fan. When you feel me tugging, that means your time is almost up, and no matter what, you have to come back. Tell me you understand.”

He meets Sam’s eyes as he climbs back into bed next to Cas, and lays down, arms folded over his chest. Sam looks just as afraid as when Dean had told him he’d planned on sending himself to the Empty all by his lonesome.  _ Ye of little faith _ , Dean thinks to himself. If he can travel dimensions and still come out in one piece, what’s a little dream hopping?

“I understand, Sam.”

“I tug, you come back,” Sam repeats.

“You tug, I come back.”

Sam nods once, and he takes a breath before he begins muttering the incantation. Dean closes his eyes and lets the words flow over him, through him. He measures his breaths, counts the seconds between each inhale and exhale. Relax. Dean’s gotta relax. It’s going to work. Half the work is done. Dean’s got his body. He just needs Cas’s mind.

“Anything yet?” Dean asks, opening one eye to shoot a teasing grin Sam’s way, but the smile falls from his face as his jaw goes slack.

_ We’re not in Kansas anymore, Dorothy _ .


	6. Chapter 6

Dean recognizes this place.

The walls are covered floor to ceiling in spray-painted symbols, wards, sigils. It’s the barn from all those years ago, the one Bobby and him had broken into, the land it had sat on long abandoned and overgrown. He can’t see it, but Dean still feels the string digging into his wrist. A reminder. He turns around and finds that he’s alone. No Bobby, and more importantly, no Cas. It feels like a lifetime ago that this happened. Cas hadn’t been Cas yet. He’d just been some other monster that burned people’s eyes out of their heads, and didn’t quite know how to exist on the mortal plane.

Being in Cas’s mind reminds him of that time he and Sam had been sent to Heaven. Familiar places, old memories--but they’re not quite the same. It feels like a mirage, like if Dean were to reach his hand out and touch the dry-rotted wood, it would turn to mist. Just like in the Empty, Dean decides the best course is to keep walking. He heads towards the barn doors, and pushes them open.

Sunlight pours in and around him. Dean blinks against it, and suddenly, no more barn. He’s standing on a dock of some unknown lake, birds chirping above him. A boat putters along in the distance, causing ripples in the dark water. There’s an empty chair on the end of the dock, fishing gear set neatly beside it. Dean recognizes this place, too, because it’s his. Remember the feel of the fishing rod in his hands, the peace of just  _ being _ . He remembers the displacement of air, and Cas, the old Cas, standing to his right, posture inhumanly straight.

_ Why this place? _ Dean wonders to himself.

He turns away from the lake, and heads down a trail that takes him deeper into the forest. The ground feels too real beneath his feet, mud squelching underneath his boots. The trail isn’t long, and soon he reaches the end of it. Instead of more forest, Dean finds himself back in the bunker. He swivels, disoriented by the sudden change of scenery, except when he looks behind him, the trees are gone. It’s just a wall of familiar books. It’s starting to make him uneasy, how empty Cas’s mind seems to be. Dean shrugs the feeling off, and keeps walking. He checks the library, and finds nothing. He checks the bedrooms next. Still nothing. Dean makes his way towards the kitchen, and finds empty beer bottles and half-eaten pizza left out on the table. 

He suddenly remembers this, too. Cas at his side, a little closer than usual, but Dean hadn’t given a shit. He’d been buzzed, and Cas’s knee had kept knocking into his under the table and he’d let himself enjoy the contact. Cas is funny when he wants to be, usually on accident but sometimes on purpose, and Dean had been laughing so hard.  _ Good times _ .

Dean makes the mistake of blinking.

_ Cas, you motherfucker,  _ Dean thinks, feeling nauseous from yet another scene change.

He’s behind the wheel of the Impala this time, and Dean panics for a second before he realizes it isn’t moving. It’s parked on the side of a highway Dean doesn’t recognize. They all look the same anyway, dream or no dream. He peers out the passenger window into an empty field, and his heart almost stops when he sees a dark silhouette against the horizon.

Dean heaves himself out of the car, slamming the door harder than he intended. He half-jogs across the berm, and into the low-lying grass. For a second, he worries it’s not Cas but something worse, except he knows that coat and the set of those shoulders anywhere.

“Cas!” Dean shouts, cupping his hands around his mouth as he does.

The figure whips around to face him.

“Dean?” Cas’s voice calls back, muted over the wind that’s whipping through the field, but it’s him. 

Jesus fucking  _ Christ _ , it’s Cas, and Dean is so relieved, he thinks he might just fall to his knees right then and there. Cas starts to make his way to where Dean’s standing, slow at first, and then he’s running, taking long and meaningful strides until he’s only a couple feet away. Cas looks okay. He looks alive.

He also looks terrified.

“Tell me that you’re real,” Cas says, his tone commanding but laced with traces of fear.

“Cas, it’s me. It really is me. I promise,” Dean says, trying not to sound as desperate as he feels. 

He knows there’s not much time left, and Cas isn’t coming any closer, doesn’t look any less serious.  _ Fuck _ .

“Shit, okay. Okay. I’ll prove it to you,” Dean says, holding his hands up to show that he isn’t a threat. “Um, your name is Castiel, but we call you Cas. When you were human for a bit, you liked to take long showers and use up all the hot water in the tank, even though it would piss me off. You try to hide it, but I know you don’t like my music all that much, no matter how many times you turn the radio up when Zepp comes on.”

“When we were in Purgatory the second time around, you said you heard my prayer. That I didn’t have to say it,” Dean keeps going. “I forgave you, and I forgive you now. I forgive you for pulling the sacrificial bullshit stunts you always do. You stupid son of a bitch, I  _ forgive  _ you. Now, would you please come back home?”

Cas is looking at him in a way that Dean doesn’t know how to read. Dean knows he’s avoiding it, saying what needs to be said, but he doesn’t want to do it here. He’s so tired of feeling like there’s no time, like if he doesn’t say it now, he won’t ever be able to again--but it’s there on the tip of his tongue, knocking on the back of his teeth. 

_ You can have it. You can have all of it _ .

As if on cue, Dean feels a tug on his wrist. It’s now or never. He reaches out his hand, and for a second, he thinks Cas isn’t going to take it.

“You came for me,” Cas says like he can hardly believe it.

“Of course, I came for you, dumbass,” Dean says, voice cracking just a little. He’s hopeless.

Cas closes the distance left between them, and places his hand in Dean’s, smooth but strong. Not one second later, Dean feels the world drop out from under him like a trapdoor, and he’s freefalling through empty space. The only thing grounding him is the string around his wrist, and Cas’s death grip. He thinks he may be screaming, but suddenly, he’s back in his body, and he heaves in a massive breath on instinct.

When he opens his eyes, Cas’s hand is gone, and it takes a moment for Dean to reorient himself. His hands spasm at his side, gripping at the sheets, and Sam’s voice sounds very far away, but it’s there all the same.

“Dean! Can you hear me?”

Sam hadn’t said anything about it feeling like he’d been hit with a freight train afterward. Dean lets out a low groan as he manages to prop himself up on his elbows. The candles are blown out, and Sam is there at his side, hand splayed between his shoulder blades keeping him steady.

“Did it work?” Dean croaks.

He looks to his left and Cas’s eyes are closed. The whispering has stopped. Dean feels the panic shoot through his limbs, make his elbows buckle for a moment.  _ Fuck. No, no, no. It had to work. It  _ had  _ to. _ Dean inches closer to Cas, but has to stop himself for a moment. His stomach is twisting itself in knots from the sudden change of position. Cas definitely doesn’t deserve to wake up covered in puke.

“Give him a moment,” Sam says, annoyingly calm. “It’s only been a day here, but who knows how much time passed while he was in the Empty.”

Dean knows that’s the rational thing to do, but he wants to grab Cas by the shoulders and shake him until something happens. Every second feels like an eternity until Cas’s eyebrows scrunch together, and Dean sucks in a surprised breath, forces himself to not move and just  _ wait _ . It takes another minute, but Cas’s eyes open, and he makes eye contact with Dean. The smile Cas gives him is weak, more just a quirk of his lips, but it’s still a goddamn smile, and Dean thinks he’s going to cry again--which, no, not happening.

“Hello, Dean,” Cas whispers, his voice so delicate and hoarse from disuse Dean can barely understand him.

“Hey, buddy,” Dean says with a shaky laugh. “You’re back.”

“I’m back,” Cas echoes, and Dean lets the warmth in his chest spread, lets it sink deep into his bones, and settle in his stomach until it takes root.


	7. Chapter 7

Cas is mute for two straight days. He doesn’t say anything except when they ask him a direct question. Dean knows that haunted look, the look that says _I don’t know if this is real, and I’m too afraid to let myself believe it._ It’s the same feeling he’d had after Hell. After Purgatory the first round. Dean had thought it’d been some new brand of torture, letting him think he’d gotten out only to drag him back, except nothing had happened. No fire, or brimstone. No earth opening beneath his feet to swallow him. He’d really gotten out. Dean doesn’t know how to make Cas believe he got out, too.

Dean does the only thing he knows how to do. He cooks breakfast, lunch, and dinner. He makes Cas eat, even though he knows he doesn’t have to. He makes him coffee, tea, brings him water. Dean even washes his clothes, for Christ’s sake, and sets out some fresh ones of his own as a choice. Cas wears them, and Dean pretends it doesn’t please him as much as it does. There’s something different about Cas that he can’t quite put his finger on. He seems smaller, the lines of his face more pronounced. Cas looks just as worn out as Dean. 

They dance around each other. Dean doesn’t stray too far, but they keep their distance from each other on the couch, at the table, in the hall. When they make eye contact, it isn’t for very long. Dean’s just happy he’s here, but he knows things are far from fixed. Sam and Jack are busy working out a plan of action for the whole empty world shit, and Dean still feels as useless as he did before they had Cas back. Even now, Dean can’t think of anything else except about what Cas had said to him before he sacrificed himself. 

Sam and Jack are gone again on another run. They think they’re on to something, but Dean had only been half-listening as Sam had explained their idea to trap Chuck in the Empty and throw away the key. He knows he should be more invested. Dean is. He cares. He wants to make things right, but first, he has to figure out his own shit. 

Dean finds Cas in the kitchen. The sink is running. Cas is cleaning the dishes, the muscles of his arms working as he scrubs at a plate, and he doesn’t look up like he usually does when Dean enters a room. He watches Cas pick up a knife in his right hand, and there must be too much soap because it slips out of his grip. Cas cries out as the blade slices through skin, skin that shouldn’t be bleeding that much.

The skin doesn’t knit itself back together. The implications of that hit Dean full force.

“Cas,” Dean says, blowing his cover. 

Cas drops the knife, stumbling away from the sink to shrink against the wall, bloody hand held up to his chest.

“Hey, hey, it’s okay. It’s me. Didn’t mean to scare you,” Dean says, holding out his hands in an attempt at a calming gesture. “It’s just me.”

“I’m--I’m sorry,” Cas breathes out, eyes wide and brimming with tears, and Dean feels so useless. “I didn’t hear you come in.”

Dean walks slowly over to where Cas is standing. There’s so much blood. It’s staining Dean’s old shirt. 

“Let me see it,” Dean says softly.

Cas deflates. He holds out his hand, and Dean inspects the wound. It’s a clean slice right between his thumb and forefinger. Nothing some rubbing alcohol and stitches won’t fix. Maybe some whiskey, too, for good measure. They’re both gonna need it.

“Sit down,” Dean orders, and Cas listens. 

Dean retrieves one of the many emergency kits he keeps around the bunker from under the sink, and drags a chair next to where Cas is at the kitchen table.

“This is gonna hurt like a bitch,” Dean says right as he starts to dab at the cut with an alcohol-soaked wipe.

Cas hisses out something that sounds a lot like _fuck_ , and it punches a laugh out of Dean. He hasn’t laughed in ages. 

“Told you,” Dean says, and chances a glance at Cas’s face. 

Cas is already staring at him. Dean swallows thickly. This isn’t how he imagined this day going, but shit happens, and he’s dealing. Dean knows how to do this. He knows how to take care of people, and he wants to take care of Cas—angel or human. Doesn’t matter. It had never mattered. Cas’s hand is the same size as Dean’s, only smoother from years of being healed from Cas’s grace. He doesn’t know how, or why Cas is human again. Or maybe, he’s only half human. Dean doesn’t think it’s his place to ask the details.

Dean thinks again about deals and consequences. This must be the consequence. His life for his Grace.

Dean threads the needle, and before he starts, he grabs a fresh bottle of Jack Daniel’s from the pantry. He twists off the cap, takes a swig, and offers it to Cas. Cas takes it, and appraises it. He brings it to his lips, and takes a shot of his own. Dean watches everything. Cas scrunches his nose against the taste, and Dean’s chest aches.

“You good?”

“No,” Cas says, always so blunt.

Dean snorts. He can’t argue with that. 

He’s careful, takes his time with each pass of the needle through pale skin. Dean’s a little rusty, but Cas takes it like a champ, doesn’t bitch when Dean pulls too much or too hard. He just sits there and lets Dean fix him up without a word. When Dean’s done, he holds Cas’s hand for a moment, and hopes Cas understands him, what he means.

“Thank you,” Cas murmurs, and Dean can’t look him in the eye, just hums in reply as he stuffs the kit back together.

Dean knows. He knows this is when he should say it. They’re alone, and he’s thought this over so many times. He’s rehearsed it in the mirror as he’s brushed his teeth. In the shower. Making coffee. At one in the morning. 

“Cas, I—“

“Don’t,” Cas murmurs, wincing as he tries to flex his hand.

“You don’t even know what I was gonna say,” Dean counters, hoping Cas will take the bait and bicker with him, hoping he will follow the same old script.

“Dean, I am sorry that circumstances were not different. I knew that the only way for you to get out alive was if I let the Empty take Billie and I together. The things I said were true, and I meant them, but you have no obligation to acknowledge them. They were a means to an end, and for that, I apologize. You do not have to talk about it.”

“Yes, Cas. Yes, I do have to talk about it, and you’re gonna let me this time,” Dean snaps, and Cas shuts up, blue eyes tracking Dean’s every move.

They’re going off script now. Dean’s never been any good at improvising.

“I came down here to tell you that you can,” Dean says.

The air feels like it’s been sucked from the room. His lungs can’t fill up enough, and he feels a little dizzy. Cas just keeps staring him down with those piercing eyes of his, and Dean sucks in another two quick breaths. _Just say it._

“You can have it, Cas. If you’ll, uh, still have me, that is.”

Cas blinks at him. His face doesn’t betray whatever is happening in that ancient, stupid enigmatic brain of his. Just when Dean thinks he might pass out, Cas stands up from his chair, and Dean braces himself for impact. He’s made an ass out of himself, and this is what happens. Cas will reject him, and they’ll never talk about it again. This is the ending Dean had prepared himself for the most. He waits for Cas to walk away, but a gentle touch to his temple startles him back to the present moment. Cas is so close, bare feet toe to toe with Dean’s socked ones.

“You’re real,” Cas mutters, tracing the baby hairs along Dean’s hairline.

“Yeah, Cas. We’re real,” Dean says, echoing Cas’s words to him from when Dean had been having his existential Chuck-centric crisis.

Dean is eye level with Cas’s chest, so he decides to fix his gaze on the blood stains around his sternum area. He brings his right hand up to touch the wet fabric, and Cas lets out a raspy breath, warm breath washing over Dean’s scalp.

“This is real, Cas,” Dean says, and he means more than just that Cas is standing here in the bunker’s kitchen in front of Dean and not some cold, dark emptiness.

This feeling, this terrifying, addictive feeling—it’s real.

“There is no one else, Dean, but you. There never was,” Cas’s voice says above him, and Dean can’t think too hard about the way Cas says that so reverently, or he’ll lose his mind.

“You really know how to sweet talk a guy, you know that?” Dean laughs, but it comes out high and nervous.

Dean bunches Cas’s t-shirt in his fist, and pulls Cas forward so he’s between Dean’s knees, so he can lean his head against Cas’s torso. Cas smells faintly metallic and like a cheap fabric softener Sam bought ages ago. Cas stays stock still for a few tense seconds, and then both his hands are there cradling Dean’s head. 

Screw being. Screw destiny, and screw death. They deserve the having. They made it up as they went, and things may have been rough. Hell, things have been beyond rough, and they’ve all done fucked up shit that can never be truly forgiven or forgotten—but they’re here. They’re real.

This love is real.

Dean prays, even though he knows Cas can’t hear him anymore _._ Dean’s lips brush against the waistline of Cas’s borrowed jeans, and he hopes Cas can feel his meaning in the way Dean holds on tighter.

He hopes he can feel the love. 

They stay like that, wrapped up in each other, until Sam and Jack come back, oblivious to what just happened between them. Dean feels like everything should’ve changed, like the earth should have split open and sucked him back down into the dark abyss, because he’s not someone who gets to have this kind of joy, this king of relief—especially not now at the end of times. And yet, Cas doesn’t understand a reference Sam makes, like usual, and disentangles himself from Dean, not like usual, and the world keeps spinning.

_Good things do happen, Dean._

_Yeah, Cas,_ Dean muses, and he returns the private smile Cas gives him from across the room as he helps Sam and Jack divide up the canned goods they snagged from the convenience store in the next town over.

_Yeah, they do._


End file.
